Fig. 6.—A commodious farmhouse in Canada, equipped throughout with a complete water system. Many farmers waste enough trying to build a house without a modern plan to pay for this extra convenience.
The two little girls and their brother, ranging in age from five to ten years, spend many a happy hour in their attic chamber. The heat from the room below comes through a small aperture and warms the little place in winter time, while the breeze passes through the little windows in summer, tempering the room satisfactorily excepting upon extremely hot days. Upon the walls are arranged beautiful post cards, larger pictures gathered from magazines and other sources, and small though beautiful home decorations of every conceivable sort. The little seven-year-old boy has a small assortment of curios collected from the hills and streams, while the girls have a small display of their childish needlework, their dolls, and some of their best school drawings. How suggestive and how helpful it would be if this little den could be displayed before the eyes of all the humble cottagers throughout the rural districts!
Yes, the hogs may live out-of-doors and the horses get along very well indeed with a temporary barn thatched with straw, but the places of the boys and girls must be looked after and that in the interest of making them happy, of filling their lives with every good, clean sentiment, and of preparing them for that large sphere of usefulness which may mark their future. If the house be larger than the one we have described, then provide accordingly for the children. Give them a good room of their own. Put their ornaments and playthings in it. If there be space, provide a library containing a few suitable volumes. And after this thoughtful provision has been made, see to it carefully that their schedule for work, schooling, and the other duties allows for ample time and opportunity for their enjoyment of the apartment set aside for them. In years to come, that sweet poetic sentiment running back to the home of one’s childhood will be given greater strength and beauty because of the fact that this thing just urged has been done. And more than that, the man (or woman) who has the blessed privilege of recalling these bygone scenes of childhood receives from such contemplation a new sense of inner strength and new enduement of power to go on with life’s struggle and master the larger problems that come to him.
The evening hour
No matter what the cares of the day may have been, how many things may have gone wrong, how much hay left out in the field unprotected from the rain, how many acres of corn unplowed and losing in the battle with the weeds, how many items of household duties unperformed—there is every justification for laying aside these work-a-day affairs at the approach of bedtime and for the spending of a precious hour with the problems of the children. Farm parents as well as other parents can thus preserve their youth and add immeasurably to the joys of their own lives. This thing of being with the children at evening may seem slightly awkward and prosaic at first, but it will slowly grow into a habit and will become transformed into an experience of great charm and beauty. Best of all the high refinement, potential in the lives of the children, will thus be gradually brought to an expression, and the foundation stones of substantial manhood and womanhood will be laid in their lives. Yes, it is true, even farm parents may learn to lay aside their cares and perplexities and enjoy the splendid privilege of getting intimately acquainted with the hopes and desires and aspirations of their boys and girls!
REFERENCES
The Outlook to Nature. Revised edition. L. H. Bailey. Page 79, “The Country Home.” Macmillan.
Low Cost Country Homes. A. Embury, Jr. Collier’s, June 10, 1911.
A Primer of Sanitation. John O. Ritchie. Chapter XXXIII, “Public Sanitation.” World Book Company, Yonkers, N.Y. Recommended for general use.
From Kitchen to Garret. Virginia Van de Water. Chapter X, “The Boy’s Room.” Sturgis-Walton Company.
Home Waterworks. Carleton J. Lynde. Sturgis-Walton.
“Comforts and Conveniences in Farmers’ Homes.” W. R. Beattie. Yearbook, Department of Agriculture, 1909. Washington, D.C., pp. 345-356. See also in same volume, “Hygienic Water Supply for Farms,” pp. 399-408.
Water Supply for Farm Residences, The Plan of the Farm-House, Saving Steps. Cornell Reading-Courses.
Rural Hygiene. H. N. Ogden. The Macmillan Company.
Rural Hygiene. I. N. Brewer. J. P. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia.
Earn your Child’s Friendship. J. Balfield. Lippinott’s Magazine, January, 1911.
Fireside Child Study. Patterson DuBois. Dodd, Mead & Co.
Home Decorations. Dorothy T. Priestman. Chapter XIV, “Rooms for Young People.” Penn Publishing Company, Philadelphia.